Last year, actors Rick Schroder and Alfonso Ribeiro and professional driver and three-time winner Al Unser Jr. were part of the star power that drew fans to the 40th, and last, Pro/Celebrity race that’s the big event on Saturday of the Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend.

Toyota, the Grand Prix’s sponsor, said it would end support for the race in line with moving its North American headquarters from Torrance to Texas. For the Grand Prix Foundation of Long Beach, which donates its fundraising dollars to local charities such as the Long Beach Special Olympics and the Ronald McDonald House, that means there will be a big drop in funds this year.

For approximately the last 20 years, the foundation auctioned off the chance each year for one well-heeled philanthropist to drive in the race, after four days of training at a driving school. Last year, the winning bid was $105,000. That came from four-time racer Doug Fregin, co-founder of Research In Motion, the company that invented the BlackBerry.

“Obviously, the people that are buying this thing are very well off financially,” said Rick DuRee, president of the volunteer-run foundation. In addition to driving in the 20-minute race, they participate in the press events along with the roughly 20 other drivers. They get to hobnob with TV stars and professional Olympians who’ve participated, such as football player John Elway and tennis star Martina Navratilova.

That one auction item accounts for about three-quarters of the foundation’s fundraising each year. It typically brings $80,000 to $100,000. Other donations come from a Monte Carlo Night event and high-stakes poker game at that event. The Monte Carlo Night brings in about $20,000 to $25,000, DuRee said.

But 2016 was the final year for the pro/celebrity driver race. Instead, this year’s Grand Prix (April 7-9 )will have a new event, the Can-Am Challenge. Also, the concert lineup for this year’s Grand Prix features more well-known names than in the past, said Jim Michaelian, president and CEO of the Grand Prix Association of Long Beach.

“We were interested in seeing what we could do to build up the attraction on Saturday,” with the absence of the professional / celebrity race on that day, Michaelian said. “We pursued very vigorously a much more high-profile concert series on Saturday night.”

As a result, this year’s concert series will have the most attractive line-up since the early 2000s, when the concerts have been part of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, he said. Supergroup Kings of Chaos, featuring rocker Billy Idol and including Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, will play Saturday night.

‘We’re a blank slate’

In the meantime, the foundation is looking at options to replace its funds from the pro/celebrity race in future years, DuRee said. This year, the Grand Prix Foundation will be far short of its usual fundraising mark.

“How we’re going to make that up really hasn’t been decided yet. … Right now, we’re a blank slate.”

A replacement will have to be something unique, as the pro/celebrity race was, DuRee said. It can’t be a golf tournament or something so typical for fundraising efforts, he said.

The foundation donates 90 percent or more of the funds it takes in, DuRee said.

This isn’t the first time the Grand Prix Foundation has had to alter its fundraising strategy. In 2015, the organization traded its black-tie charity ball for the more casual Monte Carlo Night to better raise donations.

Foundation philanthropy

Even without the pro/celebrity race, the foundation still has a job to do, Duree said. Other charities seek donations of Grand Prix tickets that they can sell or auction for their own fundraising. The foundation fields those requests and organizes those donations.

The foundation also gives annually to its Robert E. Leslie Memorial Scholarship for Long Beach high school students and to charities like the Special Olympics. They’ll do that again this year, even without the pro/celebrity race. This year, they’ve already allocated $17,000, including $5,000 for the Long Beach Special Olympics and $12,000 for the scholarship program. That was money they reserved from last year, knowing that they wouldn’t have the benefit of the pro/celebrity race this year. They’ll donate more funds this year, but how much isn’t yet known, DuRee said.

The foundation focuses on charities that serve youth and the elderly, like youth mentoring program Operation Jump Start and Meals on Wheels, DuRee said. But some might not get foundation funds this year, DuRee said.

“Some of the smaller charities around Long Beach, we’re not sure what we’ll be able to give those.”

Antonie Boessenkool covers education and the Los Angeles Unified School District. She previously worked in Washington, D.C., covering finance and the defense industry, and in Bakersfield, covering city government. In Orange County, she wrote about arts, features and home decor.

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